Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine

This book is a must read for countries like Pakistan, which have already gone through multiple rounds of "shock therapy" at the hands of the IMF, and are just about to sign on the dotted line for yet another one.

The book doesn't rail against capitalism, rather it rails against the extreme right-wing ideologues who wormed their way into economic seats of power in the US, and into the IMF and the World Bank. The problem with neoconservatives is that they live in a bubble full of right wing fantasies, and never condensed to step out into the real world and see how far their neo-liberal fantasies had diverged from the real world.

What looks good on paper often pans out different in the real world, especially in corrupt societies like Pakistan - and this is one factor which the IMF never seems to account for properly. In a poor country like Pakistan, regressive taxes like Central Excise Duty on services and sales tax on everything (even drinking water!) are highly regressive, and with Pakistan's highly corrupt taxation system just give more of an incentive to people to stay further out of the tax net. It's a vicious cycle... but read the book for criticisms of the IMF and their achievements in the developing world.

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries. #